Our model

Our social enterprise model makes us the only commercial public service broadcaster whose sole incentive is to invest in valued public service programming.

For over 30 years, Channel 4 has successfully balanced the twin challenges of delivering a public service while being commercially self-sufficient.

In a world in which consumers increasingly demand that businesses deliver social good, and organisations in the charitable and public sectors are raising more and more money from commercial activities, this has become a powerful business model. Today, that model is known as ‘social enterprise’.

Channel 4 is a self-sustaining social enterprise, raising commercial revenues from the market and reinvesting surpluses back into British public service content from UK independent producers.

We do this through a cross-funding model that funds genres such as News, Current Affairs, British Film and Education (which are typically loss-making), with revenues from commercially-valuable programming, like Factual Entertainment.